Bills would set pay scale for prosecutors

Would more promising young prosecutors stay on the job longer if they got regular raises based in part on years of service?

Some lawmakers behind bills to establish a pay progression scale for assistant district attorneys think so.

State Reps. Michelle Litjens (R-Vinland) and Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) have written the Assembly version, and Sens. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) and Luther Olson (R-Ripon) have teamed up on the Senate form of the bill.

"There is a public need for talented and motivated attorneys in district attorney’s offices throughout the state," Litjens said in a news release.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm backs the idea. "It's like a roadmap for the ADAs to see how long it will take them to make a certain salary, when contemplating a career," he said.

"That's the hope. It's more of a retention strategy," Chisholm said, noting that because high turnover prompted in part by lack of salary progression, he has hired 80 of the 128 prosecutors in his office in the past five years, and that three promising staffers with families and loans just told him they're leaving for better paying legal jobs.

"You're bleeding experience and talent every day," he said.

Last year, the University of Wisconsin's La Follette School of Public Affairs surveyed 146 current and former assistant DAs and concluded that many leave the job -- or plan to -- because of the prospect of being stuck for years at entry-level salaries. The report called the turnover rate among prosecutors "alarming."

The bills would establish a 17-step plan, with each step representing 1/17 of the difference between the starting pay and top pay for the job. The proposals don't, however, provide funding for the raises desperately sought by the state's 330 or so prosecutors.

All assistant prosecutors with at least a year's service who don't already make the top salary would get an automatic bump to the next step on July 1, 2013. New prosecutors would move up a step whenever they complete their first year.

Each July after that, elected district attorneys would have the discretion to move assistants up to any other pay step, "based entirely on merit."

The bills follow last year's budgetary showdown over prosecutor pay, when the Walker administration tried, and failed, to force assistant district attorneys to take an additional six unpaid furlough days and then threatened layoffs before Walker rescinded the layoff notices.

Regular raises for prosecutors were abandoned in 2003. In Milwaukee County, assistant district attorneys start at $51,000. But after 10 or 12 years, they earn only about $56,000. Veteran prosecutors with 20 years of experience or more earn salaries in the $90,000 to $115,000 range.

Chisholm notes the irony of the new pay scale, if adopted without adequate funding: He might have to actually lay off some prosecutors to give raises to more experienced staff.

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